i am a cultural mess

Haha, I had quite an eventful morning, and the fact that Ecuador´s culture is not my own was thrown in my face. It makes me laugh, so I thought I´d share. And it also reveals my often funny or awkward presence in this country.
This morning I went for a run around the soccer field. I don’t often attempt to run, because it is quite difficult at such a high altitude, inconvenient, and a huge cultural faux pas.
First, description of the physical nature of the soccer field. It is set a bit above the center of town, and has beautiful views of the mountains and the surrounding countryside. It is officially the high school´s soccer field, but has about 15 mounds of dirt located in the center. Donkeys and sheep often graze on the field. Usually there are a couple kids either playing soccer in the remaining grassy areas using garbage as goal posts, or climbing on the large metal goal posts. There are 2 little girls who often hang a hammock from the top to hold their dolls.
The soccer field is the only area in which I can run, for if I run on the streets the dogs will chase me or the people will stare. A white girl running is quite a sight. So I limit myself to running laps around the ¨soccer field.¨
Today there were 4 little girls sitting on the end of the field, just talking and hanging out. 2 boys were flying their homemade kites, of plastic garbage bags, sticks, and old clothes as the rope. The first lap they asked what I was doing-a typical question…then at each lap continued to ask me how many laps I had remaining, if I was tired, why I was breathing so hard, what is my name. I answered the questions, I told them I would come hang out after I was done. So I sat down with the girls after my ¨run.¨ They once again asked why I was running, where I was from, etc. etc. The boys came and sat down with us and we talked for about 30 minutes. During this conversation, I was asked what my career was and my college major. They didn’t understand that my ¨specialization¨ was Communications, regardless of how hard I tried to relate this to counseling or teaching. People here major in fields that will aid them in getting a job. Communications. Often a joke in the US. Really a joke here. Then one of the girls starts laughing…I ask why, and her brother responds ¨you can say words in Spanish, but your pronunciation isn’t very good, because you are learning¨(haha, I thought my Spanish was improving because I tested Advanced-Low in the most recent PC language test. Think again. Oh humility.)---moreover, she wasn’t even laughing about my funny white girl pronunciation! Her leg had fallen asleep. An eventful morning run.
Then I get home, and my grandmother laughs. She always laughs at me when I get back after a run. She asks me how my run was, I tell her a little bit about my experience with the kids, and she says I look funny to them because I wear stretch pants…this wasn’t even a reason they mentioned. But yes, I wear running tights for 30 minutes 2x a week. And it is apparently quite noticeable and really super weird. It was an interesting interaction because we are talking about my odd presence and cultural offenses, meanwhile an indigenous woman is outside handwashing the family´s clothes, and my grandfather is sitting over a bucket of blood, plucking the hair off of a dead cuy (guinea pig). A couple weeks ago my grandpa showed me the cuy shed (there are about 20 of them, 10 ft from my room, separated by gender and size) and had said that some of them are almost mature. Apparently that means ready to be eaten. Plus there was San Pedro music playing in the background. This is music from the 4-day festival 3 weeks ago which continues to be played EVERYWHERE. And while all of this is going on, I am standing there in my running tights. It was a funny mix I thought.
So those are my thoughts from today. A glimpse into my crazy life. Off to my site tomorrow morning! Cant wait to let you all know how it goes.
Love,
Sarah